Verdant Twilight
by Magikoopa981
Summary: Bowser finally agrees to a peace treaty with the Mushroom Kingdom, but the resulting peace and his resignation of Princess Peach leaves him in a deep despair. The miserable king believes he is alone in his thoughts, but he is to make an surprising ally in his search for an escape…
1. Chapter 1: A Long Way To Fall

Verdant Twilight

By Magikoopa981

Chapter One: A Long Way To Fall  


 _BREAKING NEWS: Mushroom Kingdom and Koopa Kingdom declare end to war! Bowser Koopa and Peach Toadstool sign peace treaty! Fifteen-year hostilities finally ended!_

The newspaper, blown about the lonely wind, is already over a year old. With how the time was flying it seemed like only yesterday to King Bowser Koopa that he had come to Peach's Castle finally ready to bridge the old gap between the Koopa Kingdom and Mushroom Kingdom. Mario and Luigi had been there, ready to attack Bowser and defend the Princess, and they had remained on careful guard for the next hour as Bowser signed the treaty and participated in a lengthy ceremony. Bowser didn't blame them in the slightest. He couldn't lie to himself and say that he hadn't been tempted to suddenly seize the princess during the visit. He had come to the Mushroom Kingdom that day with relatively honest intentions, but the gnawing of regret and fear of the changing situation had urged him to violently end the proceedings by grabbing Princess Peach and running.

He had managed to resist, however. Fast-forward a year into the future, and Bowser found himself sitting on the top balcony of Koopa Castle, looking down upon the empty fields that spiraled out from the castle grounds. Behind him the empty halls of his former glory echoed with the sounds of rats scurrying, and memories of a vibrant, if perpetually scared community of servants ready to obey his every command. Now there was nothing.

Again the thought occurs: it wouldn't take too much. If he could just stop thinking for a single moment and banish that fear inside of him, he could leap from the high balcony and let the earth below take him. It would all be over in a single, wonderful instant. It would be so wonderful to not have to sit here and suffer silently anymore. It would be so nice to be dead, immersed in oblivion.

It would all be wonderfully nice— if leaping could kill him. But he was too powerful, his body too strong for his own good. The last two leaps from the balcony had achieved nothing besides torturous pain.

"My liege?" The sound of billowing cloaks scuffled behind Bowser. It seemed that the echoes emanating from the depths of the castle were not merely memories.

Kammy, wearing her old magikoopa's cloak, walked up alongside Bowser. She looked worried.

Well, he did know about Bowser's recent string of suicide attempts.

"My King? What are you doing up here? You're...you're not thinking of leaping, are you?"

"No." Bowser sighed, looking down upon the ground hundreds of feet below. "There's no use. It'd do no good."

"That's right it'd do no good!" Kammy sniffled. "You could get terribly hurt your majesty!"

"No, it'd do no good because it wouldn't kill me." Bowser growled. "And I'm not your majesty anymore. I'm nothing. I have no subjects and no kingdom any longer. Ever since that peace treaty with the Mushroom Kingdom, everyone left. Now all I have is this empty castle!"

Bowser scowled, feeling the old urge to cry welling up inside of him. He sniffed it away and looked disapprovingly at Kammy. "What are you wearing that old thing for?"

"What? My, er, cloak?" Kammy looked down at the dark-blue fabric. "I found it hanging up in my closet here! I thought I'd take a bit of a vacation and see the old castle and how funny I just happened to find this…"

She realized what she had said and stopped speaking. She looked up from the cloak and up to Bowser who was still staring wistfully, if rather palely at the ground far below. "King Bowser, sir… is this where you've been the last few months? We were all dreadfully worried…"

"No one was worried." Bowser ground out. "Who? Who was worried? Besides you?"

"Well, um," Kammy paused, searching. "The queen really is concerned about you… She has quite honestly felt rather bad about how down in the dumps you've been…"

Bowser choked. "The queen?"

"Oh…" Kammy turned pale, realizing that he had made yet another mistake.

"So they've married. They finally did it." Bowser's eyes grew distant, and now it seemed he was staring down through the very earth itself. "Peach and Mario… they're really together now."

"W...we wanted to invite you, sir." Kammy stammered, "But no one knew where you'd gone…"

"It should have stayed that way." Bowser said quietly. "I should have been able to do it by now."

"Do what, my liege?" Kammy asked nervously.

"I should have been able to kill myself."

* * *

As best as it could be measured it had started about two years ago. For the umpteenth time Bowser had kidnapped Princess Peach, taken her back to Koopa Castle, barricaded himself in, had been attacked by Mario, had the princess stolen back from him, and had been resoundly beaten until he had been knocked unconscious. He had woken up once again without his love, feeling like a failure in every aspect of the term. Those kind of feelings had been present at previous failures but they had just now grown to a tremendous clamoring, a tearing at his soul that made him want to rip his own head off to find relief. It was not just a natural depression that had captured him but now an outright existential despair as Bowser looked out over the years past and saw that nothing had changed. Worse yet, in a way that was harder to describe, the future appeared bleaker and more uncertain than ever before.

It was the first time Bowser had ever contemplated suicide. It wasn't too serious at first… just a small whim, a sudden small teasing that asked the simple question of: Why do people do it? Why do people kill themselves? Is this kind of pain I'm feeling the kind they felt? When is it worth it to kill yourself?

Bowser had brought it up with Kamek back then, back when the magikoopa was still his chief advisor. He had been simply shocked. "King Bowser, what are you asking?! Suicide is never an answer!"

"Kamek, don't you think there's a point where someone's suffering is so great that there is simply no reason to live on anymore? That has to be measurable, don't you think?"

"I must disagree, sire." Kamek shook his head. "There is always a reason to keep living!"

Bowser didn't say anymore— he could tell the conversation would go nowhere. Instead he continued to turn the thought over in his mind as he walked from place to place, or as he stayed cooped up in his room. Wherever he was, it seemed like he was endlessly daydreaming about suicide. It still wasn't necessarily an _answer_ to him, merely a question.

Would suicide be right for me? He wondered. No one liked him, beside Kamek. Even the person he loved hated him. He seemed to fail at everything he attempted to accomplish.

And now, as his thoughts continued to spiral outward and outward, a new fear started to approach him. Ahead, in the not too distant distance, a vast void was yawning, a great black abyss of the future. Uncertainty was suddenly tearing at Bowser's heart, and where once the world had seemed like a place with certain answers and methods, now became a slippery hell, where every failure in the past seemed to guarantee further failure in the future.

But it still wasn't really that bad yet. It's not like he walked around, desiring to be dead at every waking moment. He found himself sleeping more, not wanting to think for long periods of time, but he wasn't tortured yet. He could live like this, still— miserable, but contemplative. Still mildly curious, still feeling like he had some reason to live.

The futility of capturing the princess seemed to have settled onto him now, however. In his free time he found himself moping around his castle, spending time in the castle library like he never had before. He actually started to read, and began to wonder how he could ever have ordered all of the strange, wonderful texts to be burned. He then found himself infinitely grateful to the old librarian, now dead, who had pleaded with him to spare the library his fiery wrath. Now the place was like a gift to him.

Some days he wandered outside for walks, and one time happened to stumble upon the royal family's ancient boneyard in the deep woods behind the castle. A nostalgic, comfortably gloomy feeling began to settle in on him, and for a flash moment he felt appreciative of the depression he was feeling, for stirring up these new feelings and contemplations on him. At a turn he found his parents grave, and he fell to his knees and cried. He then remembered them and actually cared for the first time about them, beyond his little nursery where he had been spoiled to oblivion. They had fallen ill when he was young, and he could hardly remember what they looked like, but their love radiated through the years and touched him deep inside. The cold feeling he would never see them again, and never be able to appreciate them while they were here, was like a stab to the heart.

He had no one to love, and no one loved him. There were the koopalings, but the idea that they were his real children was propaganda, a cheap lie. In truth they were orphans, raised to be captains and killers by military men, and despite their deceitful surface behavior were unfeeling stones on the inside. If anything they scared Bowser, and he found himself forced to act demanding and rough to them if only to reassure himself that he was the one in the position of power.

Time passed, and Kamek, sensing a change, came up to Bowser when he was out in the woods feeding birds one evening.

"Maybe it's time." Kamek suggested vaguely.

"For a peace treaty?" Bowser finished, before clamping his mouth shut. He realized sourly that he had just fallen into a trap.

"If you wish, my lord." Kamek bowed.

Bowser clenched his teeth and walked away without saying anything. He felt manipulated. Not by Kamek, but by himself, by his subconscious, which had given up the life goal Bowser had decided on so long ago. A peace treaty meant that Bowser would no longer be able to try to capture Peach. It meant the end of this life.

But progress had to be better than this stifling stagnation, didn't it? Things could only get better from here, they had to. Bowser couldn't imagine feeling worse than he did.

Three days later he came to Kamek and agreed: it was time for peace.


	2. Chapter 2: The Loneliest Number

Chapter Two: The Loneliest Number

A whole rush of events occurred with the signing of the peace treaty, but most of them didn't really matter to Bowser. The world was growing less and less interesting to him by the week. Events all around him seemed to randomly occur without any way of being predicted, and the miserable koopa king began to feel separate from it all.

Just weeks after the peace treaty was signed and word was sent all over the Koopa Kingdom, a mass exodus began. Creatures of every species were leaving the Koopa Kingdom to immigrate to the Mushroom Kingdom. Economically, geographically, and politically speaking, just about every aspect of the Mushroom Kingdom was superior to the Koopa Kingdom, and as a bonus, the two countries directly bordered each other. Where previously there had been a fear of war-related retaliation for refugee movement, there was now no worry of Bowser striking at the Mushroom Kingdom for loss of citizens and potential military power. He was simply forced to sit there and watch as his kingdom was drained. But honestly, he really didn't care.

He had larger thoughts on his mind: dating Princess Peach.

Oh, it sounded silly, and he thought it was ridiculous even as he said it in his mind, but after reading so many romantic novels in his castle's library, and ten years of forceful kidnappings failing to help anything, he felt he had a better idea now of what women liked.

He began grand plans: a trip around the Mushroom Kingdom and Koopa Kingdom by clown copter, visiting various vistas. He researched different attractions, reading until his brain hurt. Now that he was doing something related to the princess, he found himself driven, and life was beginning to feel really worth living again. He began to feel an old hint of confidence coming back, and felt sure that he was doing things _right_ this time.

Meanwhile, in order to help build relations between the Mushroom and Koopa Kingdoms, Kamek encouraged Bowser to move to the Mushroom Kingdom and start working directly with Mushroom diplomats to show off his newfound maturity- not that Kamek used those exact words. Bowser liked the idea because it'd mean he'd get closer to the princess, so he readily agreed. Three months after the peace treaty had been signed, Bowser was living in Toad Town. Kamek was left in the Koopa Kingdom to administrate Koopa Castle.

Things obviously did not go as smoothly as Kamek had promised. People did not warm to Bowser, and people did not _want_ to warm up to Bowser. They had enjoyed having him as the antagonist of their lives, and for the common toad, having an enemy to be afraid of was an important part of life. Being afraid and having an evil present was _supposed_ to happen… evil didn't just become good. Bowser clearly couldn't be trusted. There was no point in even trying to trust him.

Bowser didn't care about this. He didn't expect the toads to like him. He had never expected the toads to like him. He didn't care if all they gave him were scared glances... if they didn't implicitly avoid even coming near him on the streets. He didn't care if the local supermarket cleared of customers when he entered. This was already what his life had been like back in the Koopa Kingdom. Even though his place of living had changed, nothing was actually different.

Then, suddenly, after both an eternity and in a sudden instant, the day came. With all his plans made, and no excuses left, Bowser went to visit Peach in Mushroom Castle. He claimed to the toad guards to be visiting for a diplomatic meeting, and even though he could have swiped the little annoyances out of the way at any time, he waited patiently as they chattered stupidly amongst each other, trying to decide if they should let the former terrorist and enemy leader Bowser Koopa into the castle.

Well, of course they did. At least they weren't stupid enough to not accompany Bowser up to the princess's room, as little as it meant. It occurred to Bowser multiple times that he could simply snatch the princess up and make his escape through a window, but he resisted the urge. He was a different person now. He understood the pain he had put Peach through before, and was determined not to do it again. He really cared about her, and would accept whatever decision she would make regarding the date.

She met him in her room on the third floor of the castle. She was looking out the balcony, and invited Bowser to her to look out over the countryscape.

"I'm glad you came to visit." Princess Peach said.

"You don't mean that." Bowser said sullenly.

"I do, really." Peach replied earnestly. She gave Bowser a small smile. "I'm still so happy about the peace treaty. Our kingdoms have come such a long way in just these last few months. We've both become more prosperous and the people are so happy. Don't you think?"

"I guess so." Bowser replied. He forced himself to stare out over the land. He didn't want to be caught staring at Peach and looking like some kind of creep. All the cool, handsome people never did that. Mario probably didn't either. Maybe that's how such a fat, ugly little man could end up with a princess.

"Is something wrong?" Peach asked suddenly. "You came here for something, didn't you? What is it?"

A bad tone was creeping into her voice. Bowser could hear it, and alarms were going off in his head. This was going in a direction he didn't want it to.

Bowser turned to the princess and cleared his throat. "I…" He was distinctly aware that the toad guards were still there, just waiting. "Princess, could you please excuse your guards?"

"Why?" Peach asked tightly.

"I have something I want to talk to you about... alone." Bowser replied just as tightly.

Peach's eyes narrowed, and she turned her head away so that Bowser couldn't see her face. Then her head slowly turned again and she looked to the toad guards. "Please wait outside my room."

"Princess…" One of the guards uttered.

"Please." Peach ordered. "I trust King Bowser. We are allies now." She looked up at Bowser, straight into his eyes meaningfully. Bowser almost shuddered.

The guards left, both sighing quite loudly. Bowser wanted to snap and roar at them, but he was better than that now. He still needed to remind himself every so often: he had become a better person. He was mature. He was mature.

"Thank you, princess." Bowser said gratefully. "I…"

"Please, let's sit down." Peach moved away from the balcony and into her room, gesturing towards a set of chairs. "I have the feeling you have quite the proposal to make. I'm not meeting anyone for a few hours, so we have plenty of time to talk."

"Well, er…" Bowser eyed the small pink chair that Peach had gestured to, and that she was now sitting across from.

"Don't worry, it's much stronger than it looks." The princess said with some humor. "Please, sit."

Bowser produced a drawn out sigh and then sat slowly, waiting with fearful anticipation for the crunching sound of the chair being crushed. To his infinite relief, no such sound was made, and he actually found himself resting for the first moment since he had entered the castle.

"Now, what did you want to talk about?" Peach's face was full of understanding. She was demonstrating the same radiant kindness and generosity that had made Bowser fall in love with her the first time.

"Princess Peach," Bowser cleared his throat…

And then stopped. The tension of the moment grabbed his throat. He thought back now to all of the stories he had read of fearful protagonists struggling to speak their minds to their loves, and losing them forever. He wouldn't let that mistake be repeated. He would speak...now…

"Yes?" Peach prodded encouragingly.

Bowser's jaw moved up and down silently for a moment.

"...I want to go on a date! With you!" Bowser finally managed to gasp out.

The room froze. It was like it had been cut out of the very universe, a space-time fragment made of smooth cheese divided by the finest of knives.

A rapidly decomposing, cold cheese that was intensely uncomfortable to experience, and even now was being dropped into a hot cup of soup and dissolved from the bottom up. Now that moment no longer existed, and Peach's face was beginning to contort, to react. Now anything was preferable, even that cold frozen moment before.

"Date?" She said softly. She was trying to control herself, but the edges of her face were clearly twitching- from amusement? Horror? Disgust? Pity? Probably all four.

"I...I have a plan." Bowser mumbled. "I have my clown copter right outside. We can go over the Mushroom Kingdom, maybe see some places in the Koopa Kingdom… er, not my castle, of course, you've seen that enough times, bwa...haha…"

"Bowser, I can't date you." Peach said. "I'm...I'm already with Mario."

"With Mario?" The words jerked out of Bowser's mouth. "The little...fat man? Mario?"

"Bowser, you should already know this." Peach said sadly. "I've been with him for years now."

"Well you're not… but you're not married, are you?" Bowser mumbled.

Peach gave Bowser a pitying look that was so awful that the koopa king could feel the conversation caving in around him. There was nothing else to be said, really nothing else. It was over, and so were Bowser's hopes.

"Okay." He ground out. "Okay, I get it. I understand. Sorry to bother you." The urge to simply grab Peach and run was overwhelming, and his fight to resist it was making him dizzy. He stood from the little pink chair and turned in a wobbly fashion, accidently knocking over the chair and the table with his tail. "Sorry." He mumbled as he stumbled towards the door.

"Bowser…" Peach said softly.

"No, no, say no more." Bowser didn't turn around. He found the door and threw it open. "Goodbye, princess."


	3. Chapter 3: Hellfire

Chapter Three: Hellfire

Despite his best efforts to not think of Peach over the weeks following the disaster, the agony of her rejecting form still haunted Bowser's dreams. It seemed that life really was pointless now, and the urge to die was growing stronger than ever before.

Ruling his kingdom no longer interested him, and in all honesty, it was hardly even his kingdom anymore. It had come to his realization some months after the signing of the peace treaty that several toad lords and Mario himself had worked to sneak in several rulings within the treaty- rulings that would grant the Mushroom Kingdom significant means of power over the Koopa Kingdom. They had predicted that Bowser would be too stupid to read the treaty closely, and clearly, they had been correct.

So, when the Mushroom Kingdom's political forums began to make overt moves to obtain the Koopa Kingdom as an annexed state, Bowser did nothing. He even specifically ordered Kamek, back in Koopa Castle, to do nothing, and he ordered the Koopalings to do nothing as well.

And just like his depression, his home country crumbled in wave after wave of reactionless action. Bowser was too tired to fight back, and worse yet, simply did not care.

"You're being selfish, you know." Kamek had chattered at him. They had been in a cafe, sitting in a secluded corner where as few toad eyes as possible could stare at them.

Bowser swallowed another cup of coffee. "Waitress." He said weakly. "Three more, please." The drinks gave him a small boost of energy that just barely made him feel like he was alive.

"Are you listening?" Kamek asked in an irritated tone of voice. "It's time to get over Peach. Please, your majesty. We can still recover the castle."

"I don't care." Bowser grumbled.

"We've lost the land of our people!" Kamek scowled. "Soon there'll be toads and all manners of who-knows-what living in our lands, taking Koopa Castle…"

"It's just like how our citizens moved to the Mushroom Kingdom." Bowser shrugged. "It all just… everyone's just trying to survive. You know what I'm saying? What's the point of being...of hating people…? Hating anyone at all?"

Kamek blinked at Bowser, not understanding in the slightest.

"Oh God, what am I doing?" Bowser groaned, slamming his face firmly down onto the top of the coffee table. The coffee cups clattered and spun, but miraculously, not one fell or spilled.

"Your majesty…" Kamek began.

"Don't call me that. I'm nothing anymore."

"Your liege," Kamek insisted, "I think the answer here is obvious. You need to start dating."

"What." Bowser moaned.

"You heard me!" Kamek crowed. "Try speed dating or something! I don't know! It's clear that Peach is out of the question now. You must move on. Really, you should try to settle down with a nice lady."

"Armmgfhphl." Bowser replied.

And so he did try. It was as awkward, terrible, and futile as the idea had sounded. Bowser had no interest in anyone who wasn't Peach, and almost no one had interest in him because he was a giant ugly koopa. Actually trying and failing made Bowser feel even more alone, and he began to lock himself in his rented Toad Town apartment room for days at a time, spending most of the seclusion watching the TV for news of Princess Peach.

That was when Kamek suddenly passed away from a heart attack. The old magikoopa had almost walked into the street as cars were driving by when a sudden honk from an oncoming truck stopped him. The koopa stepped back onto the sidewalk in time, but then immediately fell to his knees as his heart became unbearably tight. Transported at a leisurely speed by disinterested emergency toads, he was dead before he reached the local hospital.

"How could this have happened?!" Bowser roared, slamming his fist down on the hospital's front desk. For the first time in a year he felt anger coursing through him with incredible strength. "How…?" Outright, powerful grief, with no other way to present itself, was coming forth as furious rage.

There was a bureaucratic shift and Bowser gained a new chief advisor, an old crone that the king had worked with in the past: Kammy Koopa. Despite her age the weak-backed magikoopa was excited by all the new political changes taking place and didn't seem to mind the Koopa Kingdom's near-complete loss of power. She was a friendlier and mellower personality to talk with than Kamek, but she was also much less helpful and didn't actually seem to be able to advise Bowser on anything political. Bowser mostly kept her around so that he could speak to someone every once and awhile from the darkness of his apartment room, but largely let the magikoopa do what she wanted. He was quite aware that she was managing his kingdom behind his back. He thought of punishing her to cheer himself up, like he used to do to helpless subordinates in the past, but the thought no longer brought him pleasure, and worse yet, the idea that he had ever enjoyed punishing people twisted his stomach.

The days were growing darker. Fall was moving well through, and it would start snowing soon. Bowser wanted nothing to do with it. Just before he locked himself away for his own personalized hibernation, Kammy insisted that Bowser come along to a church in Toad Town.

Bowser's history with religion was complicated. He had never been particularly interested in it, and his memories of being forced to go as a child to various Koopa Kingdom services were memories of dreadful boredom, standing tiredly in the dim light of the early morning as a large crowd around him felt some kind of mystic energy that he didn't. After he finally convinced Kamek to stop making him go, he was struck by a certain guiltiness. Certain Koopa Kingdom religious leaders had demanded to know why the future king had stopped attending religious services, and the answer that he simply wasn't interested had not pleased them. The word began to be spread around that acting as he was, young prince Bowser was destined for Hell: eternal suffering in the realm of Eldstar's punishment for the evil and damned.

This was Bowser's first real indication that he was a bad person. It scarred him terribly, but he came to accept the role, for he just couldn't get himself to attend the church. The people there all hated him… and it all bored him to death… so why would he? And prayer did nothing for him. He prayed for years at night (even after he stopped attending church) to God, to Eldstar, who granted the wishes of the people of the world. But it seemed that Eldstar cared nothing for him. Bowser prayed to get friends, for prosperity for his nation, and simply to be happier. Nothing happened, and the pale silence he received in reply convinced him that he was already too evil for Eldstar's consideration. He had accidently become an enemy of god, and was already cursed to hellfire. It was enough to make him cry for several days.

All that before he was even thirteen. Kamek had always told him that he thought too much and felt what he thought too deeply. It seemed the wheels in his head were constantly spinning with dark conclusions, spurred by the search for the "answer"— a way to be happy. This eventually arrived in the form of Princess Peach, who Bowser was able to pursue for years, and thereby block out most of his dark thoughts.

Then, by the time the peace treaty was signed many years later, Bowser didn't care anymore about Eldstar. Whether the god existed or not, it had no place in Bowser's thoughts anymore. Spiritual despair was no longer the cause of his suffering.

Ultimately, the conclusions he walked away with after the Town Town church visit were not nearly as bad as when he was a child, but they stung in a new way: the sure conclusion that there was definitely no Eldstar. Again, Bowser had felt nothing sitting among the pews. Again, Bowser had watched as all the people around him had joined together in some celebration beyond his grasp. Thinking back on all Bowser had read, it seemed to clear to him that there was no Eldstar, and these people were participating in a mass delusion to escape the misery of their everyday lives. It was fortunate for them that they could stop themselves from thinking too hard about that which they had such faith for… No matter how much faith Bowser could try to grab, the crushing logic of the situation would simply pull his soul out of the house of god and leave him stranded in a dark sea of nihilism.

Oh, but it was certainly a more welcoming environment than before. But Bowser hadn't felt anything in common with those people. He felt like an extra puzzle piece in the world. He felt like neither toad, nor koopa, nor shy guy. He was nothing.

Three days after attending the church, Bowser locked himself in his apartment room. He left a note asking Kammy to bring him meals if she could, but he was not particularly concerned if she found the note. Laying on his bed, he tried to sleep and read the days away.


	4. Chapter 4: The Sound of Silence

Chapter Four: The Sound of Silence  


Bowser had always liked haikus, that ancient form of poetry from the far east. Haikus consisted of 17 syllables divided into three lines, with the lines having 5, 7, and 5 syllables in that order. Bowser liked them because they were probably the easiest form of poetry possible, and even before he started to read, he liked to pretend he was something of a scholar. One haiku he had composed a long time ago ran:

 _Like the moon over_

 _the day, my genius and brawn_

 _are lost on these fools._

Locked in his Toad Town apartment room, either reading or scratching on scraps of paper, his latest haikus were not nearly as positive.

 _Everyone hates me._

 _For long years I was evil._

 _They never forgive._

...

 _Long thick durable_

 _rope, strong enough to strangle_

 _the freak koopa king._

...

 _High cliff over sharp_

 _rocks, leaping would end it all_

 _in a quick moment._

...

 _Neck bared, long sharp knife,_

 _drag along in a clean line,_

 _throat choked by blood._

...

 _My wrist cut blood runs_

 _a trail of winding rivers_

 _marks my painful death._

...

 _Leg tied to a rock,_

 _tumble into the deep sea_

 _the end will come soon._

...

 _Death death death death death_

 _death death death death death death death_

 _death death death death death_

...

 _Die die die die die_

 _die die die die die die die_

 _die die die die die_

...

 _Stand in the rushing_

 _road, arms open as I wait_

 _for the truck of demise._

...

He crossed out that last one. A truck probably couldn't kill him. In fact, it was a good question what could actually kill him, since Mario had failed for so many years. Even if the fat idiot had always meant to simply knock Bowser out, he should have accidently killed the koopa king one of these days through his violent methods.

No, it was just no good. No good. No good. No good. No good. No good. No good.

…

It was somewhere in that lost period of time in that darkness, endlessly writing stupid nothings that meant nothing and that no one would ever care about that the pain suddenly became too much. Bowser wanted to peel the skin off his head, wanted to grate his face off, wanted to smash his head against the wall until he could stop thinking stop thinking stop thinking stop thinking stop thinking. It was endless. He tried to sleep to avoid it, but his mind wouldn't allow it. It attacked him with dark thought after dark thought, torturing him awake. Was this going to be his life from now on? It was too much. This was it, he was done. He was too tired, he couldn't take it anymore.

In his next note for Kammy he asked for a thirty foot rope. He wasn't sure exactly how much he'd need, so better too much than too little. He had a thick neck after all.

Kammy's shocking naivety paid off as it had before . She delivered him the rope, and left a strange message that seemed to imply she thought he meant to practice some kind of arts and crafts with it.

 _Perhaps,_ Bowser thought, _Consider it modern art. They call just about anything art these days._

There was a convenient rafter in the room, perfect to tie a rope around. Bowser threw the rope up over it and with the two ends prepared to tie a noose. He stepped up onto the lonely chair in the room but found that it did not have the strength of Peach's little pink chair. With a loud creak, the chair shifted and then shattered beneath Bowser's feet.

Ultimately Bowser had to drag his bed below the rafter and tie the rope standing on top of it. When the noose was ready Bowser put it around his neck (with some effort) and then stood for at least an hour, trying to gain the courage to jump off of the bed. He had not expected this fear. To suddenly stand in the face of oblivion, to be faced with a choice he couldn't take back. The contemplations he discovered in that moment were too dark and bizarre to be described directly. Afterwards, Bowser wasn't even sure he remembered the exact moment. He just knew that eventually, like the disconnect between laying in bed and suddenly dreaming, he had stepped forward and fallen.

Both a fear and a joy grabbed him at that moment. Before he could contemplate any further, he crashed into the floor as his weight pulled the rafter down and destroyed the roof above his room. The sound was terrible, and Bowser thought it had been the sound of death, until he found himself sitting on the floor, rope still around his neck, snapped at one end.

He sat with his mind numb for five minutes, before the sound of rapid knocking outside his door woke him up.

"FUCK!" Bowser roared. He stood in a rage, ripped the rope from his neck, and stomped towards the sound of knocking. He ripped the door open and violently shoved aside the landlord who was standing there. "GOD DAMN IT!"

Before he completely lost it and burned the building down with his fiery breath a cold spike of depression shot out from the depths of his mind and he was immediately sobered. He turned back to make sure the toad he had shoved aside was alright, and found a very angry, somewhat bruised individual standing up to him, demanding he leave.

"Don't worry, I'm going." Bowser said quietly.

He turned around, walked down the stairs, and left the building. Alternately waves of fury and misery swept over him. He wanted to leave, to escape. For the moment the memory of the attempted suicide was so embarrassing that Bowser couldn't think of trying again. He just had to leave.

He slept in an alleyway and then at night left Toad Town. Toad Town people went to bed early and awoke early like good little citizens, and so no one was there to see his departure. That was just how he wanted it. With any luck, they would all forget about him.

He took the midnight train, operated by a single lonely old koopa. Bowser took the train to the very end of the line, just recently constructed: a little outpost in the western Koopa Kingdom. And then from there, he wandered.

He tried not to eat. He thought that maybe with an ascetic sort-of lifestyle he could find some kind of understanding, or at least he wouldn't be such a fat piece of shit anymore. He couldn't resist the sweet beckonings of food however. The times when he was stuffing his face were one of the very few times his mind was sated and he stopped thinking about his situation. So he ate, and ate and ate random foods he found in the wilderness, stuff he stole from dumpsters in the towns he passed through—mushrooms, plants, whatever. Sometimes he became sick. Sometimes, when he was very sick, but still no closer to death, laying out on desert sands beneath the dark twinkling sky, he prayed quietly to whatever might be above.

For better or worse, the call was quietly absorbed by the darkness.

* * *

"And then eventually I ended up back here, the castle already deserted. The Koopa Kingdom had already been dissolved by the final alliances with the Mushroom Kingdom." Bowser finished.

"It was simply progress, my liege." Kammy said simply. "It's best for everyone involved if the two kingdoms come together, as it was in ancient times."

"It's not best for me!" Bowser shouted. Then his face turned red and he scowled. "No, of course, I'm being selfish. What's best for the majority is what's ultimately best, right? Every time I feel pain it doesn't matter, I'm only being selfish. Of course. Of course."

Kammy rolled her eyes and grabbed Bowser's hands. "You big idiot. Just shut up."

"Wh-what!?" Bowser's eyes widened.

"Come with me." Kammy instructed. "And just be quiet."

The two entered the dark castle, which Kammy filled up with magical light by gesturing to the various wall sconces they passed.

Kammy had Bowser take a long hot bath in the royal chambers while she cooked. After the bath she had Bowser eat most of a huge bowl of warm soup, filled with what seemed like an endless variety of ingredients, and then had Bowser go to bed.

"Read a book if you need to. Wait...here, read this." Kammy teleported a book from the library and handed it to Bowser. "Have you read this?"

Bowser glanced down at the title. "No."

"Good. Read that." Kammy nodded and turned around. "Have a good night, King Bowser."

As the little old magikoopa scurried away, Bowser looked down at the floor. Too overwhelmed with the kindness that felt far too unnatural to him, he only moved his jaws a slight bit before calling out:

"Thank you Kammy."


	5. Chapter 5: Psychic Chasms

Chapter Five: Psychic Chasms

Bowser awoke the next morning to find the castle entirely lit up, every sconce in every corridor lit with magical fire. Kammy had made him breakfast, and was scurrying around doing various projects to make the castle seem like home again. There was also a new guest in the castle: a psycho magikoopa, a trained koopa that specialized in therapy. There was no real mystery to the guest's appearance, though Bowser pretended to have no idea what the magikoopa was there for until Kammy spelled it out at dinner.

"You will be having daily sessions with him." She explained.

"Why?" Bowser asked crankily.

"Because I want you to be happier, King Bowser." Kammy replied. "And I don't know how to answer all of your questions. He is the one who is best suited to help here."

"And how is he going to help me?" Bowser grumbled.

"I don't know that— he does." Kammy replied, with a hint of annoyance in her voice. "He's helped a lot of people before. Tomorrow he will talk with you, and you can get a better idea yourself."

Bowser sighed and said nothing else.

So, the next day, he met with the psycho magikoopa. Their name was inconsequential… it was something common. Names hardly meant anything anymore to Bowser, who had already decided they were ultimately useless labels that told you nothing about the person who you were speaking with. For instance, as Bowser explained to the magikoopa:

"Why do you hate your name?" The magikoopa asked.

"It sounds stupid. It sounds like the name a dog would have." Bowser explained patiently. "There is no reason for me to have this name, except some dead people gave me it before I had a voice in the matter. Now I am stuck with it."

"So you are angry at your parents for naming you 'Bowser'?"

"I have no feelings about my parents. I never knew them." Bowser replied.

The magikoopa paused, scribbling a little in her notebook. Then she looked back up to Bowser's face.

"What would you like to talk about?"

"I have nothing I want to talk about." Bowser crossed his legs and leaned back in his chair. "You can't help me. Not unless you can get me Peach-"

He paused and squeezed his eyes shut. "-Aaaaarrrrghhhhh."

"I _mean_ ," Bowser resumed, "Unless you can get Peach to help like me. Oh wait. She's married. Never mind. What was I thinking."

"You know," The magikoopa said, "I truly believe there is someone out there for everyone. Eventually, you'll find love."

"You know what I truly believe?" Bowser shot back. "There were an odd number of people born into this world."

So it went on. The magikoopa wrote all of her little notes, and Bowser felt worse and worse as he was forced to think more about his life situation and explain it in detail, now for a second time. He became even more aware how truly pathetic it all was, and also that, still, the answer was to stop thinking. This lead him to a new idea.

Bowser hated alcohol. H-a-t-e-d it. The stuff, no matter what kind, always tasted like medicine to him, and every time he had tried drinking, he'd ended up throwing up without fail. He also never really saw a point in the stuff.

Now he could see a point. Here was a magical substance that could stop him from thinking, that could finally turn his mind off. If he could carefully keep himself in a state of perpetual drunkenness, he would never have to face the world or think at all. It would be wonderful. Bliss.

So he went to the castle's alcohol storage and drank. Carefully. He hated the taste of alcohol, any of it, so he chose specifically strong stuff so that he could get drunk as fast as possible. This meant rum and gin. He also got some plain juice, so that once he had thrown back a shot of the rum/gin he could quickly swallow juice and erase some of that horrible taste from his mouth.

Now, here was the plan: 1 shot every half-hour. That didn't seem so bad. Bowser had always drank at a faster pace than that before, and he'd gotten sick. This would be slow enough— but also fast enough to lead him into a nice oblivion, wouldn't it?

So Bowser started. The taste was as wretched as before, but as the shots (and hours) went by, he could feel himself entering into that state of bliss. His mind was no longer functioning properly, and there were only good feelings.

Then time broke.

Then, Bowser was throwing up.

God damn it.

God fucking damn it.

He still hadn't calculated right, and he had hardly managed to enjoy even two hours of bliss before becoming sick. It was too much.

So he couldn't drink alcohol either. That wasn't a solution.

* * *

One day Bowser went out walking into the woods. It was summer now, and the trees were a shaded, verdant green. It was nice that it wasn't winter and cold anymore, but the warm summer weather brought its own kind of menace: the fact that even though the weather was so perfect, Bowser still felt largely the same inside. None of his plans had worked, he had lost his love, his kingdom was all but gone, and he had nothing to look forward to.

But then, on that walk that one day, something happened. While he was feeding animals deep in the woods where the royal family was buried, where no one else should have been, Bowser spotted a shadow. There, among the darker parts of the green, lurked something. It looked like a tree, moving slowly.

"Who goes there?" Bowser called.

The shadow stopped, then began to approach.

Bowser waited with a bit of apprehension until the figure came into the light. It was Luigi.

"You."

"Hello." Luigi bowed slightly. "King Bowser."

"I see." Bowser set his jaw. "You're here to mock me. You and your brother won your victories over me, and now you come to give me further grief. Cute."

"I'm not here to give you grief." Luigi smiled softly. "Trust me, that's all behind me now. Now that I know we're kindred spirits."

"Eh?" Bowser tilted his head.

"Even if you were back to your old behavior, I wouldn't move to stop you." Luigi started to walk, moving past Bowser. "I'm not even sure myself why I stopped you from kidnapping the princess all of those times before."

"Probably because it was the right thing to do?" Bowser suggested tiredly.

"The right thing? I don't know." Luigi shrugged, his back to Bowser. "I honestly think you cared more about Peach than my brother ever has. You probably deserve her more."

"Maybe if Peach was an object and not a person." Bowser replied. "She obviously didn't like being with me."

"Oh, I don't know." Luigi spun on one foot and turned back to face Bowser. "I think she was just going to go with whoever was stronger. I think that's the only thing that mattered to her."

"No." Bowser said.

"Haha, I'm just messing around. Come on, let's go for a walk." Luigi gestured and walked deeper into the woods.

Bowser, with nothing else to do, followed after.

"As I said, Bowser, we're kindred spirits." Luigi explained. "We're both miserable from thinking too much, something that no one around us can understand. Most of them, if not all of them, have never thought as long as we've had. They've had their various sedatives: pleasurable things that dulled their minds and kept them from pursuing trains of thought for too long. Those sedatives usually came in the form of lovers, something we've failed to attain and have been subsequently plunged into this existential torture."

"How can you claim to know anything about me?" Bowser demanded. "Who said I was… that I thought too much?"

"I can tell." Luigi tapped his head with a finger. "Everyone in the world knows you've become depressed. And I know from some of the stories people told about you back in the Mushroom Kingdom that you've become quite smart and no longer so emotional. When someone's suicidal it's either because stupid emotions took them away, or that they thought too far and have become too familiar with the nature of reality. As I see it, you are the latter kind."

Bowser said nothing.

"I've been looking for a friend who shares the same despair that I do." Luigi continued to explain, "But unfortunately or fortunately, depending on how you look at it, most of those who desire death and truly need it manage to accomplish it without others finding out and stopping them."

Bowser stopped walking. "Alright, what the hell are you talking about?"

Luigi turned around. "You're scared, aren't you? You know how this all must end, but you're still scared of the actual result. The void. The darkness."

"I don't want to kill myself." Bowser lied badly.

"Yeah, and I haven't been overshadowed my whole life by my idiot brother. I know where it stands for both of us."

"So you're saying you're as miserable as I am?" Bowser shook his head. "If you even knew half of how miserable I was you wouldn't be so fast to say that…"

"Ha. Ha." Luigi shook his head. "Trust me, I have it worse than you. Let me tell you."

They had made it to the royal koopa family's boneyard. Luigi hopped up onto a tilted gravestone and sat on it. Bowser moved over to a completely fallen rock and rested himself.

Misery did enjoy company.


	6. Chapter 6: Green Ghost

**/A/N/: This chapter has some small sexual references in it, but I don't think it's quite enough to warrant an 'M' rating. Just a warning.**

Chapter Six: Green Ghost

"To start with, I haven't lived a year of my life without my brother around to stand above me. It's ironic really— that I'm taller than he is, but because he's more fit, more handsome, and has absolutely no social anxiety, he's the popular one. He's the one that everyone loves, that everyone looks to as a hero. I'm no one. My achievements are less, even though I'm smarter. I won a poetry competition while Mario was spending alone time with Peach, and no one cared or remembered. Common people don't care about the arts. Mario's a hero of the common people, which is the majority of the people.

Anyway, being overshadowed my whole life by a physically fitter brother made me turn to the arts. I read. I read a lot, read and read and read, thinking that if I became smart enough, people would start to . I thought that was the key to popularity, since I couldn't change my face. I just needed to become a kind-of sage that everyone respected…

But as I discovered, and as I can continue to confirm now, it didn't matter how smart I became, how much I read, how much I wrote. My poetry and my little short stories meant nothing to anyone… Well, that made me feel great. Ha! Haha.

And then you came along, Bowser, and started to capture the princess. Those were some times. People had to work harder to ignore me because I was becoming a real hero, helping to rescue the princess (who would then turn around and immediately suck Mario's dick and not give me the time of day). People started to like me! It was shocking.

But I was too scarred by that point. The kindness of others felt like some kind of mean trick to me— it all felt wrong. I couldn't see what the joke was. It was too late… I just couldn't feel generosity anymore.

Meanwhile, as a side effect of my search for a means to become popular, my reading brought me to the same realms of existential despair I think most intelligent people encounter. I began to wonder what the purpose of my life was, why I was living at all, and my only answer was this: this ambition I had grown to learn everything I could, and to write some great book using the knowledge I had compiled. Great! So as long as I ignored the nihilistic implications of having such a useless life goal on top of all the other uselessness, I was good to go. I had lost hope of even ever having a girlfriend by this point, so that didn't tie into my goals at all…

But of course, a few years after I had stopped caring about women at all, and being angry about their total disregard for me (yes, I know, it was unfair, stupid, and selfish of me) someone started to actually become attracted to me. Princess Daisy of Sarasaland.

What a joke. That poor woman. She really did care about me, and all the while I felt nothing for her. As I dated her, and played all the tricks I had learned through socializing and through television I lured her into my trap. I could tell more and more that despite my awkwardness, despite my ever-present distance and despite my failures— she really did love me. She thought we'd be something. And so did I. I didn't know at the time, when I was dating her, just how little I cared about her. I thought I was doing it right! I thought that this was what it felt like to love someone, when only later I could realize that I couldn't love. I can't love!

Yes, you think you had it bad, King Koopa? Can you imagine not being able to love at all? To only try, and feel nothing, and in the end turn all those who would care for you against you? Can you imagine, after all of the awkward dates, all of the signs I was unable to read, when Princess Daisy guided me to her bedroom… that nothing happened? Can you imagine, laying there, as the gorgeous leader of a kingdom tries her best to get your dick hard, and absolutely nothing happens? Can you imagine that? Being so empty inside, being so dead, from the very beginning, even before you realized your inner despair, that you had no love inside of you? That all you can feel for others is irritation, and an abstract pity of the creatures struggling all around you?

At least you can jerk off to your princess, koopa! At least you can have fantasies, at least you can dream. I used to be able to, but ever since finding out just how broken my existence was, even my private sexuality was gone. Now I get my pleasures through pain. Cutting. Scratching.

...Ha ha. I'm just kidding. About that last part. I enjoy my pain, but I don't seek it out. If I'm not brave enough to kill myself in an instant then I'm not brave enough to draw out some extended pain. Besides, it would go against something I've realized: enjoyment of life must come through surprise. If you become too smart, and life becomes too predictable—in any theatre of life—you lose your soul. I think some of that's happened to you, hasn't it? Not as bad as me, though.

No, not nearly— I lied about not hurting myself. I was hurting myself until recently. Because at first, the pain wasn't so predictable. I didn't know _exactly_ what stabbing my arm with a knife would feel like. Oh, but I know now, and now, when I do it, it's just the same old feeling. Just that same old feeling of pain… No longer the fun surprise I used to enjoy. I just enjoy some scars now.

I am _loving_ that look on your face. You're nowhere near my level, are you? But you're braver than me, because I can tell: you're ready to die. When I was where you were, I wasn't ready, I still had some notions about ambition driving me, about some pointless dreams about writing a great book. It's only taken me subsequent years of realization that I can never achieve my only purpose, my only hope, that has finally made me ready. When I get no pleasure in life, all I can hope to do is accomplish my little dreams. And when I fail my little dreams… then there is no reason to live, is there?

Doing my little scratchings, my pathetic writings, I realize I will never understand human nature well enough to write. That I am too dead inside, too evil, too soulless, too narcissistic, too cruel, too caring, too loving, too _everything_ to ever realize a clear, unclouded nature. My obsession with myself and everyone around me at the very same time is the paradox that destroys me. And that no one can ever understand my thoughts is a still further curse...

I love that look on your face. I fucking love it! It's a painting to me. It's the painting I wake up to and the painting I go to sleep to. Even as smart as you are, and understanding of the need for death, you still don't understand me, do you? As with the others, I pray you never do. ...But I won't need to worry about that much longer, will I?

* * *

Luigi stopped talking and then turned to curve his head at Bowser, giving the koopa king a contemplative glance. Bowser shook his head.

"You are goddamn insane." Bowser said.

"You were already saying that with your face." Luigi smirked. "You didn't need to say it out loud."

"But I'll probably end up at the same place you are sooner or later." Bowser frowned and shivered. It had gotten dark, and a little bit cold out.

"Not if we end it now." Luigi smiled. "I was not quite brave enough to do it myself, but if I have someone to join me in the voyage, I know I can."

"The voyage to kill yourself." Bowser said tiredly. "Look…"

"You don't still have hope, do you?" Luigi chuckled darkly. "Bowser… I may be worse than you now, but if you keep going, you'll become worse than even me eventually. You'll become as dead inside as I was when I was a child, and then you'll truly love nothing, not even Peach. Then things will get really bad."

"I'm getting help now." Bowser replied quietly.

"What?" Luigi giggled. "Help? Oh no, don't tell me…"

"Shut up." Bowser growled.

"You're seeing a therapist?" Luigi burst out. "Ha! Ha ha! Ha ha ha ha!"

Bowser said nothing and turned away.

"Hey, c'mon now." Luigi entreated, coming round to Bowser's side. "I'm not laughing at you, my friend. I'm laughing at _them_. All of those idiots out there who think we're as stupid as they are, that our problems can be solved with their little therapies and methods."

Luigi stuck his face in Bowser's. "Trust me, King. It will do nothing for you. They can't understand, just the same as anyone else. They think they're smart, but they didn't go too deep like we did. They can't help. No one can— we can only help ourselves."


	7. Chapter 7: Twilight

**/A/N/: A warning— this chapter is extremely graphic. Please feel free to skip to the next chapter if extreme violence makes you uncomfortable.**

Chapter Seven: Twilight

Bowser had a dream.

In the dream, he realized that all his problems had stemmed from thinking. He had been thinking far, far too much. The years before, when he hadn't thought, and he hurt others without any concern for their feelings, he was so much happier. When he was rude, and brutish, and others didn't like him, that had suited him just fine. He had only become depressed in the first place because he had developed some empathy for Princess Peach.

But now, he realized, she didn't deserve that empathy. How could she deny him, after he had loved her so much? Could she not feel his passion bursting forth? The only thing that made his life worth living was the flames of his soul. Had this all been a test? Had she been seeing if the flames were truly deserving, if Bowser could keep his determination to have her even after so many years of denial, and even getting herself married to the man that Bowser hated? Suddenly it all seemed so clear, and where it wasn't quite so clear, Bowser ignored the details. He was done thinking. It had only caused him pain.

Bowser returned to Peach's Castle in the middle of the night. He flew up with his clown copter and broke into Peach's room through the balcony. Right into her room he came, where the royal bed was, and… two lumps laid under the covers.

"Wake up, lovers!" Bowser roared. He grabbed the sheet from the bottom of the bed and ripped it away, revealing Peach and Mario in pajamas, sleeping side-by-side. "Time to switch things up!"

"Bowser?" Mario jumped out of bed, landing wobbily on his feet on the left side. He was clearly out of practice.

"Bowser!" Peach shrieked. "What are you doing here?"

"I'm here to take you, Peach." Bowser grinned, feeling a grotesque pleasure growing at the sight of the situation. "We're going far away, where no one will ever find us. We're going to live Peach, outside of this horrible little box we've created for ourselves, this societal prison."

Mario pointed a finger. "Bowser, you…"

"Shut up!" Bowser shrieked— not roared, _shrieked_. A roaring pillar of searing fire burst forth from his mouth, aimed straight at Mario.

"Mama mia!" Mario yelped, leaping out of the way just in time. He landed face-forward some ten feet away, while the left side of the bed where he had been resting was roasted.

Peach screamed and threw herself off to the right side of the room as the fireball exploded and the entire bed was engulfed in flame, catching quickly onto the various wall hangings coming down from the ceiling.

"Bowser…" Mario stood.

"SHUT UP!" Bowser rocketed forward and grabbed Mario by his neck. "You shitty stupid motherfucking plumber! The cause of my every misery. Bwa...hahahaha…"

He tightened his grip, squeezing the breath out of Mario's neck. The plumber gasped once and then helplessly opened and closed his mouth, desperately sucking air in that couldn't make it past his rapidly shrinking throat. Bowser grasped, tighter and tighter, ever so slowly, enjoying the horrific pain he was doling onto his old rival.

"This is how the world should be." Bowser whispered, drooling as he let his mind waver in the distorted pleasure and chaos of the situation. "The victor is the one who feels the most strongly. The one who most deserves their reward...is he who suffers the most. Now, suffer as I have…"

"Bowser!" Peach screamed.

Bowser turned around slowly, continuing to hold Mario by the neck. On the other side of the room, ensconced by flames, Peach stood, shaking in terror and—ever-so-slightly—crying.

"Don't worry, dear." Bowser grinned, his face quivering. "I'll be with you in a moment."

"Just let him go, Bowser." Peach whimpered. "Leave him and take me, take me wherever you want. I don't care what you do to me, just leave Mario alone."

Bowser stared at Peach, trying to comprehend her words for a moment. Then he sneered, shaking his head slowly. "You're so fucking stupid. You _stupid fucking bitch_. I can't believe I'm cursed to love you. And that you're cursed to be my rock. You stupid idiot. If I leave Mario alone he'll just come after us and defeat me again. And again. And again. And again…"

Bowser paused and looked down at the floor with a blank look on his face. Then he shifted his grasp on Mario so that he was holding the plumber by his legs. "Let me show you an example."

"Bowser, no…!" Peach cried.

"It's like this." Bowser tried to say as calmly as possible.

Holding Mario by the legs, he swung the plumber into the nearby wall, slamming his face into sheer cold stone. "He would come after us again," _Smack!_ "And again," _Smack!_ "And again," _Crack_.

"Bowser, please…" Peach sobbed.

"Not so fucking much anymore, are you?" Bowser held Mario up by his hair, looking straight into the little man's bleeding and mashed face. "I have a theory. You… Mario… you were sent by God to test me, weren't you? You were my test, to see if I could understand the true nature of the universe. The true nature being that if I am to suffer eternally, this existence is a broken existence and one that must be fixed. ...If you are the cause of my eternal suffering, that makes you evil, doesn't it? I finally understand that now. You're no hero. I was never the bad guy, and you were never the good guy. We were just...guys… And now, you're the dead guy."

"Bowser…!" Peach ran forward.

In two swift motions Bowser positioned Mario's body and then slammed the human's back directly down onto Bowser's rising knee, the collision producing the most wretched cracking sound imaginable.

Peach stopped in her tracks. "No…"

"Yes." Bowser returned, and tossed Mario's carcass onto the flame-consumed bed. With a WHOOSH his form had disappeared into the inferno.

"Let's celebrate, princess." Bowser stepped forward, not even aware of the blood that was now sprayed across his face. "Why don't we make love? Right now, right here."

"You sick fuck!" Peach suddenly shrieked, then covered her mouth. "Get away from me."

"I want you so badly, princess." Bowser said. "You don't know… I have to have you right now."

All around them now the room was on fire. The door behind Peach was completely matted in flames, and the only other way out seemed to be the balcony out into thin air. Peach glanced behind Bowser desperately and back to Bowser's face… back and forth, back and forth, shaking with awful horror. Then her expression straightened and her eyes lost all of their light.

"I'll never let you 'have' me, you monster. Walk alone forever, you beast."

Then before Bowser could do anything, Peach threw herself onto the flaming bed. With a piercing scream and scorching blast of heat, she too was gone. Not a sign remained of the couple that had just been sleeping there moments before.

Bowser stood in wretched shock as the room crumpled all around him.

Then he laughed. And laughed. And laughed.

He walked through the flaming door, through the empty halls, down down down down down to a small room where a small pile of objects were awaiting him.

Bowser continued to laugh as he picked up the hammer and the nails and proceeded to pound nail after nail into different places all over his face. His vision was awash with blood, and then his perspective switched to the third person— watching from above as jammed the nails into his eyeballs.

He was still laughing as he reached up to the top of his hair, found the edge of his scalp, and began to tear downwards. His face and eyeballs ripped away from the nails, leaving small strips of flesh here and there and a gory laughing form, still cackling eternal.

Now he hammered nails into his ears, piercing his eardrums and creating a pouring waterfall of blood out of both orifices, but he could still hear his laughter. So he grabbed his jaw, and with a sharp twist and strong wrenching ripped the bone out, pulling out a chunk of gore and creating an even greater flow of blood to come pouring out of his gaping mouth.

Finally, he felt alright.


	8. Chapter 8: Game Over

Chapter Eight: Game Over

A dream like that had to be a sign.

Was that how Bowser truly felt, deep down, somewhere in his mind he couldn't directly see? He had felt like hurting himself, and had even started a habit of pouring scalding water onto his hands at different times of the day, but _hammering nails into his head_? _Peeling his skin off?_ So this was really how it was. If he was this messed up inside…

The next day Bowser skipped his scheduled meeting with the psycho magikoopa and went into the woods. Among the darkest shadows and most earnest foliage he came upon Luigi, who appeared to be meditating.

"I'm ready."

Luigi's flattened mouth curved slightly upward. He nodded.

"I was just about feeling the same."

* * *

When Bowser had always imagined his suicide before he had thought of planning out a special last day, one where he did all of his favorite activities and ate his favorite things and subtly said goodbye to everyone he cared about. Then he would lay himself down to gentle sleep, forever.

However, the only part of that fantasy that was actually going to come true was the last. 'Doing his favorite activities' and eating 'his favorite things' no longer meant anything. His only desired activity was his final activity: escaping from this world.

He and Luigi retreated to a warp pipe that was hidden in the woods, a light green construction that extended deep down into the earth. It felt like an oddly fitting passage to enter.

Inside the warp pipe was a small chamber— a room remarkably similar to the apartment room Bowser had stayed in at Toad Town. There was a bed, a table, a stack of papers with various writings on them, and a high ceiling with a wooden rafter. Of most notable addition was an absolutely massive bathtub off in the far corner of the room.

"How long has this been here?" Bowser asked with some curiosity.

"Hmm, something like six years now." Luigi rubbed his chin. "When my heart started to hurt I'd come out here and hide from the world. The quiet helped for a while."

Bowser blinked a couple of times. "You built a dwelling deep in Koopa Kingdom territory, near my castle, to hide away from the world?"

Luigi smirked and shook his head. "I guess you never quite realized, King Koopa, but I could tell you were heading to a dark place long before the actual chain of thoughts were set off inside of your mind. After you tried so hard and failed so many times, I knew an era of despair like this was coming, when your misery would be so great as to lead to this."

"So you were watching me." Bowser said dryly.

Luigi chuckled darkly and moved on. He pointed to the bathtub at the far corner of the room. "Get in that."

Bowser's right eyebrow rose.

"Trust me, I figured out a way to kill you." Luigi smiled and walked over to a table where a long bundle of rope was lying. "Get in the tub and turn on the hot water."

"Hmm." Bowser shook his head slightly, and then steadied himself. "A suicide bath, eh? Cutting my wrists in warm water to get a good flow going… hm. I'm not a huge fan of blades…"

"You're only afraid of doing it to yourself, right?" Luigi began tying the rope into a knot. "I figure if I do it for you it won't be so hard."

"Assisted suicide." Bowser commented quietly.

He stood in thought for a moment and then climbed into the gigantic, claw-footed black tub. He turned the faucet and shivered momentarily as warm water came pouring out of the tap and touched his toes. Warm waves of the distant past overcame Bowser, and memories of some unknown figures bathing him as a young child swam through the edges of his vision. He shivered again and laid back against the wall of the tub, and against the water that was growing up and over his tail.

"I want to thank you Bowser." Luigi said. Only the side of his face was visible, as he worked with the rope he was transforming into a noose.

Bowser laid his head back and closed his eyes. "For what?"

"Just as you did not have the courage for what is to come, neither did I." Luigi chuckled darkly again. "I'm glad we had the chance to meet again. After we… became aware."

Bowser thought quietly for a moment.

"I'm glad we met again too."

* * *

"Well, Queen Peach!" Kammy nodded her head at the door of Koopa Castle. "It _is_ an honor! I'm afraid I can't bend my back too far, I am getting on in age…"

"It is perfectly alright." Peach smiled. "I can understand it quite well. I have begun to feel a bit of that pain myself."

"Even though you stand with your back so straight all of the time?" Kammy chuckled. "I suppose they should add back pain to the list of certainties along with death and taxes…"

Queen Peach was making a bit of a surprise visit to Koopa Castle. She was accompanied only by a couple of toads, minimally trained in any skill besides kissing the monarch's ass.

"These are such beautiful tapestries…" Peach lightly touched a long hanging that was at least ten-feet tall and probably twenty times the age. "It's quite intricate…" Her eyes narrowed. "It must be priceless."

"I agree." A toad servant added pointlessly.

"Oh, yes." Kammy hobbled closer. "This hanging is an integral part of Koopa Castle. Many famous events have happened right beneath this. I'm a bit surprised you never noticed it before."

"Hmm." Peach smiled lightly and said nothing.

"So what do I owe the pleasure?" Kammy asked. "I would fetch Lord Bowser, but he's been missing all day, and I haven't been able to find him."

"He's missing?" Peach turned to face Kammy directly and raised an eyebrow. "That's troubling. Part of the reason I came here today was because Luigi has gone missing… some weeks ago."

"You believe he would be here?" Kammy cackled. "That green bean coward?"

Peach's look made Kammy close her mouth. "Ah, sorry."

"In fact," Peach replied, "Luigi constructed a bit of a secret hideout near this castle some years ago. He used to go out to it and spend several days, sometimes a week hiding from the world. He thought that Mario and I didn't know about it, but we were always quite aware. We didn't let him know, however, because we thought it was helping him out emotionally to have some alone time."

"A secret hideout? How fascinating." Kammy leaned on her cane. "I never would have guessed that would be right out in our backyard."

"Indeed. I would hazard a guess that Luigi is there right now, as is Bowser. Has he been spending more time in the nearby woods recently?"

"Well." Kammy grimaced. "He has. He enjoys walking in the woods these days."

 _Misery enjoys company_ —The old adage rung in Kammy's ears.

"If they are together, I think that's quite nice." Kammy commented after a moment. "Bowser probably needs a friend more than anything at this time."

"I'm afraid Luigi is not the kind of friend Bowser needs right now." Peach said gloomily. "Luigi has been descending into a kind of darkness for the past couple of years. He has made his desire for suicide obvious to everyone around him, and has been seeking out someone equally miserable for some time… Eldstar knows what purpose."

"You don't think…?" Kammy said slowly.

"I'd suggest we best hurry."

* * *

The way the knife glinted beneath the single lightbulb in the underground room made it seem like it was winking at Bowser.

"It used to be my father's," Luigi said, holding the knife up. "He was a woodcarver. Dead before I remember, but my childhood home always had his carvings all around. Carvings of little figures, chairs, tables, even portraits as thin as a painting but with the details etched in. Even if he was gone _,_ I felt his presence all around me as I grew up. It used to be encouraging, to imagine my father watching me from above, wanting me to succeed while no one else cared."

Bowser said nothing.

"You should know...no, I know you do know," Luigi's teeth chattered a little, "That...this will be an honor for you, to die by my father's knife."

"Yeah. Yeah, I know." Bowser grunted. He really didn't care, but he didn't want Luigi to back out of all this out of anger.

"Yeah." Luigi blinked a few times and nodded shakily.

Bowser noticed then that Luigi was sweating.

"You okay?" Bowser asked.

Luigi nodded. "I'm just… a bit excited now. Now that the moment is so close. Let's hurry. I don't want anything to ruin this. Hold out your arm."

"Which one?"

"It doesn't matter which one." Luigi snapped, licking his lips. "Just…"

"Alright." Bowser's right arm was closer, so he brought it up out of the warm water and laid it on the rim of the tub, right next to Luigi and the shaking knife.

* * *

Peach and Kammy moved through the woods as fast as they could.

Peach continually stumbled through thickets and over roots, repeatedly having to hike up her dress so that she didn't trip.

Kammy was old, and it was difficult for her to find footing with her cane so that _she_ didn't trip and fall.

"Not too much farther." Peach gasped.

* * *

"This shouldn't hurt so bad." Luigi said, "Not after all of the things me and Mario did to you before, haha…"

Still, Bowser had to look away as Luigi sharply drew the knife down Bowser's wrist. It hurt, but it activated some adrenaline in Bowser's mind and his pain began to dissipate, also being helped along by the heat of the bath. Immediately blood began to pour out of his arm and into the water.

"Give me your other arm, just to make sure." Luigi gestured.

"I think one should be fine…"

"You don't want to wake up again after this, do you?" Luigi asked pointedly.

Bowser wordlessly offered up his other arm. Already it felt harder to lift than before.

When the second cut was made Bowser lied back and sighed. The blood from his arms drained down into the tub and onto the ground besides.

The work done, Luigi stood, smiling, and headed for the noose hanging from the rafters.

"You know," Bowser said quietly, "I can't lie… For some time, I thought you were faking all this sadness just for the chance to kill me. That you encouraged my despair because it would be the only way to get a real shot at me."

Luigi got up onto the stool in front of the noose he had tied.

"But I didn't care. Even if you had been lying that entire time… I wouldn't have cared," Bowser smiled. His vision was beginning to blur. "As long as I could die… the deceit wouldn't have mattered. But…"

Luigi put his neck through the hole in the rope and tightened it.

"...It makes me a little bit happy to know we really were of one mind." Bowser chuckled a little bit, coughed, and then drew off into a sigh.

Luigi turned and smiled back for the last time. "Cheers."

As Bowser's vision faded out, his last sight was of Luigi, falling from the stool and flipping around wildly in the air as the noose around his neck choked the breath out of him


	9. Epilogue: New Lands

Epilogue: New Lands

It was around midnight. It seemed even the hospital toads had biological bedtimes they couldn't avoid, and would all be asleep until some alarm went off signifying a patient going critical.

As it was, however, they had no alarm for a patient absconding from their room— most of the residents there, being toads, were probably fast asleep by 10 PM.

For someone who wasn't a toad, though, it was no problem to escape.

He entered into a room five doors down from his, sliding it open and closing it lightly, even though a slamming sound wouldn't have awakened the patient inside. The room was simple and white, with a bed, a visitor's chair, a table with a pot of flowers on it, and a machine hooked up to keep the room's patient alive.

The chair seemed comfortable enough. Strong enough as well.

The two enjoyed the silence for a moment. Then the one who sat sighed.

"It seems we both failed. Heh...ha ha. Even in suicide we couldn't succeed. We would've, probably, if they hadn't found us. Kammy and your princess I mean. I was bleeding pretty heavily and was unconscious, and you had broken your neck...a few more moments hanging there, and you would've escaped. I guess you still did better than me, ending up in a coma and all…"

"Are you dreaming? I think that's what I always wanted death to be. Just surreal, meaningless dreams, forever. That's not what we would've gotten, though. Hm."

"I think I almost died again anyway, when your brother found out about what had happened. He stormed in here, and since I was the only one awake, he blamed me for it all. I really think he wanted to kill me this time, and I would've been happy to let him, but your princess stopped him. I think after a moment he could tell that there was no use blaming me anyhow. I'm even more sad and pathetic than you are, despite what you say. Anyone can tell."

"I've given up on killing myself again. We came close, but that brush with death was enough to scare me… scare me into living again. I wasn't happy, and it was pretty bad for a while, but then I started to look for answers…"

"And...all I can find is… that I should stop thinking. As long as I'm not thinking about life, I seem to be okay. I can live."

"I'm going to travel. I'm going to leave the Mushroom Kingdom and go far, far away. I'm going to escape this life, until I lose myself and I no longer have the identity I do now. I can't stand who I am, so my only choice is to violently rid myself of it. Go out and see the world, and hopefully learn so much and become so completely...one with the universe that I lose myself completely."

"I don't know if you can hear me, but if you can, I urge you to do the same. We can always choose to die later...but once we die, there's no going back. We can still escape this life… I think we should just do it mentally rather than physically."

"Rest well, Luigi. Goodbye."

He was large but he had gained a certain amount of grace over the last few years. He left a note on his bed letting those who cared know that he didn't plan to kill himself anymore, then pressed out into the darkness outside that still gleamed with a fading twilight.

Without looking back he was gone.

The End.

* * *

 **/A/N/: Thanks for reading. I'm not sure why I wrote this, and I don't think I expected anyone out there to actually enjoy it. But, if you did, thanks. Until next time...**


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